


A Mournful Rustling

by pirl



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:39:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirl/pseuds/pirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime after <i>The End of Time</i>, Rose stumbles upon a memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mournful Rustling

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for_ Journey's End_ and _The End of Time_, natch. Thanks to pollitt for the beta work. If anything is wrong, it's all her fault. ;) Enjoy, or send raspberries!

```````````````````````  
The leaves of memory seemed to make  
A mournful rustling in the dark.  
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

```````````````````````

Rose was sitting on the window seat thumbing through the latest gossip rag when The Doctor came breezing into the study, a large red-speckled leaf clutched in his hand. He'd been down to the greenhouses checking on the TARDIS again.

"She just started sprouting her dimensional integrator."

His grin stretched ear to ear as he showed her the clipping, obviously excited over the latest developments. But with her TARDIS knowledge still woefully sub-par, all Rose could see in his hand was an ordinary leaf. Once the chameleon circuits had come online, the piece of the TARDIS that the Other Doctor had given them had been disguised as a rather large rhododendron and her father's staff were none the wiser.

"In a few months the temporal reflector will start fusing to the time rotor. It'll take about ten or twelve months for it to be fully primed, but oh!" He brought the leaf up to his lips and talked to it as if it could hear him. "You're going to have a great year, aren't you!" Leaf in hand, he ambled over to his desk.

No longer interested in celebrity scandal, Rose was overcome by the strongest sense of déjà vu she'd ever experienced. "Hang on." She dropped the magazine to the floor and pointed an accusing finger at The Doctor. "I met you before. Before this. Before _all_ of this!" She exclaimed while waving her hands over her head. The Doctor just cocked an eyebrow at her. "You! At the Estate! Before, when you were," she paused, searching for the right words, "when you were all... ears and leather."

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, obviously thought better of it, furrowed his brow even more and finally spoke. "You're saying I met you before I grabbed your hand in the basement of Henrik's?"

"Yes!"

"Impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't." He said, matter-of-factly. "And for the record I wasn't all ears and leather. I was rugged, with character." He winked at her. "Besides, it was probably Jack you saw. He told me he visited you a couple times after he came back from Satellite 5, although he said he stayed out of sight. It figures. He was never good at being inconspicuous." The Doctor turned back to his desk, picking up a device he'd been tinkering with earlier that morning.

Rose wasn't convinced quite yet. "I remember it clearly. I just said goodnight to my mum on the way to Mickey's and you were skulking in the shadows-"

"Aha!" He interrupted her. "Proof that it wasn't me!"

"Proof?"

"I never skulk."

Rose threw him a withering look before continuing. "You were leaning on the wall and you were asking what day it was. I can't believe you don't remember this!"

"Wasn't me." He replied in singsong.

She giggled at his playfulness. "I thought you were drunk because, honestly, who forgets that it's New Year's Eve?"

"The Scraff of Hololow would. They forget their own children if they aren't surgically grafted to them after birth."

Rose's nose wrinkled at the thought. "Pleasing visual. Anyway, you asked me the date and after I told you you said..." She stopped. A confused look crossed her face.

The Doctor looked up after a beat when she didn't continue. "Rose?"

She shook her head at the memory. "You said 'I bet you're going to have a really great year.'" Her gaze had dropped to the side as she fit the puzzle pieces back together in her mind. "That was New Year's Eve, two-thousand... two-thousand five! Doctor, that was the year I met you. The other you. The leather and ears you. But you looked like you do now." She looked at him imploringly. "Why did you visit me before you met me? When did you go back?"

The Doctor set his project on the desk before getting up to sit by her side. His voice was calm and strong, accepting that she was utterly convinced by this memory. "Rose, it wasn't me. I didn't go back to visit after I left you in Bad Wolf Bay. I wanted to, but I-" he stopped. His face dropped at the painful memory and he gently took her hand in his. "I never visited you."

But Rose was adamant. "You did! It was you! I'd swear by it." She let out a frustrated sigh before clutching tighter onto his hand. She brought it up to her lips and pressed a kiss onto the soft skin on the back of his hand, deep in thought. He sat and watched her unconsciously rub her lips over his skin, reveling once again at how his human side reacted to her. "So if it wasn't you I saw that night it must've been Him."

They had decided long ago that whenever they talked about the past it would be ridiculous to claim that he, the Human Doctor, in some abstract pre-metacrisis way or another, had experienced the events differently than the Other Doctor. After the split, The Doctor that Rose had physically spent time with in the past was referred to by both of them as 'Him.' It just made reminiscing that much more practical.

"It had to be," he said.

"But why? Why pop on by just to say 'Happy New Year?' What's the point?"

"To see you again."

"Perhaps..."

The Doctor thought of why he himself, if he were Him, would travel back to a time before he met Rose. And then he knew. He knew _exactly_ why. His heart ached with the sudden knowledge, but that same single heart couldn't bear to tell Rose the truth.

"He probably had a bad day and needed a little bit of sunshine to pep him back up." He smiled sweetly and gave his Rose a soft kiss on her forehead. She smirked, her eyes closing as she savored the gesture.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. It's just weird, is all," she said.

"Not in the least! I can't count how many times I've wished that the TARDIS was mature just so I could go back and watch you at Pete's surprise party."

She shoved him off the seat. "You're so mean!" He laughed, feigning injury from her shove. "That was totally your fault. You kept filling up my glass!"

He walked back to his desk, a smile on his face but a heart heavy with the memories of the Lord he once was, and the unpayable burden of debt he'll always feel until the day he, too, would die.


End file.
